ATF: Start move retaining path

[kbluck]

I have a company of vehicles that I have assigned paths to. Each individual unit has its own path. I would like them, on order, to start moving along their already assigned path. I am having difficulty making this happen.

If I run a cancel toggle order on their heirarchy, the heirarchy hijacks their existing paths and assigns new ones consistent with the formation. Even if the formation is None, the paths get reset to something different.

If I assign cancel toggle orders to each individual unit, nothing happens. They never toggle off stop. I'm sure the order if firing, because other things also happen, and those things continue to happen normally. I tried detaching them and placing them outside of any heirarchy altogether, but no change.

I played with Conditional Start, but I can't figure out what exactly it is supposed to do or what data it needs.

So, how do I get a company to start moving along their already assigned individual paths?

Thanks,

--- Kevin

[Deltapooh]

I tried to simulate this, and got the same problem. Maybe you could assign each vehicle a trigger and response to occur sequentially, if not simultaneously. Either that or use the time limit on the first node.

[Pat Proctor]

Well,

If you can live with a time trigger, you can simply set the time for each stop node individually. Then, the units will begin moving when this time elapses.

The only alternative is platoons of single vehicles, with the platoon assigned the desired path and the platoon given the "cancel toggle" order.

Have you tried detaching the units from the company and then giving the company the cancel toggle order? If this works, it is a bug, but it should start the units without assigning paths.

[kbluck]

So, I'll ask the question that prompted the question:

How can I get a collection of units to fall into a set of existing holes after a movement? For example, an alternate position after a "fall back" has been triggered?

I've had little luck getting entire units to do this with any coherence. I still haven't figured out what they're looking for when set to SBF/Defense. How close to the hole does a given unit need to be to "see" it and move into it automatically? More often than not, they mostly ignore the empty holes and just line up.

--- Kevin

[Pat Proctor]

Give a hierarchy a route to get them to the center of the holes, stopping and facing in the direction the holes point at the end of the path.

Then, check for the hierarchy to stop. When they do, this should trigger the SBF/Defense order.

Heirarchies will only fall in on the holes if they are oriented in the same direction the hierarchy is facing.

[kbluck]

Fair enough.

What is the "tolerance" for direction? e.g. if the path direction is different from the hole's by 5 mils, will it still work? 10? 50? I'm interested because sometimes the game takes it upon itself to change paths in subtle (but sometimes important) ways without asking.

Also, how far from the path end will units look to find a suitable hole before they just sit down in defilade instead?

--- Kevin

[Pat Proctor]

To the first question, I believe to tolerance is around 800 mils (45 degrees), as this is the highest angle that will not impact hull facing for pK's

As for the second question, it is based on an algorith, which includes unit spacing distance and other combat modifiers. But, generally, an individual vehicle will not travel more than 1.5 km to enter a hole.